


Knuckles Loved

by WhiskyNotTea



Series: Whisky's Other Outlander Tales [2]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, First Love, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 15:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15439989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiskyNotTea/pseuds/WhiskyNotTea
Summary: That one time Mrs. Fitz fell in love.





	Knuckles Loved

Glenna watched the lass walk through the door to the gardens, curls pinned on the top of her head, basket hanging full and heavy from her elbow.

She recognized the glint she saw in those whisky eyes, the one that held the deepest of secrets. Secrets that made cheeks flush and tongues hurry to moisten dry lips if spoken. She saw exactly the same look in the lad’s blue ones when Claire had mended his arm. Their gazes stood transfixed in time, as if they were the only two people on the face of earth. And then, when she was around, their intense gazes transformed into soft glances and timid smiles, betraying a pull they couldn’t resist, a force that pushed them towards each other.

Aye, Glenna FitzGibbons knew love when she saw it.

What she also knew was the effect a healing hand could have upon a young heart. And how when you least expect it, you can find a piece of your soul in a stranger.

Glenna took the large basin from the shelf and poured the barley flour and oats into it. With practiced moves she mixed in the salt and butter, and took a deep breath, taking the scents of her kitchen in. With a content smile she reached for the jug of water, the wooden spoon still in hand, when her eyes lingered on the knife forgotten next to the apples.

It could be the same knife she’d used, more than forty years ago.

–

Her mother had told her to cut the meat and Glenna had huffed, blowing the blonde lock of hair that fell in front of her eyes into the air. She never liked working with meat, but her ma insisted that a good cook must know how to handle all her ingredients. Feel them, talk to them. Glenna would rather talk to Ailie and Gracie, but she took the knife in hand instead, and let her mind wander.

She’d cubed some of the meat when the blade permeated her skin. Red blood spread over the flesh, leaving her finger and pooling with the animal’s. A gasp left her mouth, succeeded by a whimper.

A slip of a knife was all it took to meet him. He was tall and thin, with warm brown eyes and slightly crooked legs. Glenna forgot about the blood and the sting of the cut the moment she laid eyes on him, her clean hand patting her skirts and brushing tears away from her eyes. He rushed to her side, taking her arm led her to a chair next to the big table littered with ointments and steeping herbs. His hand left her shoulder with an abrupt move, as if he had just realized that his touch may be considered inappropriate. A touch that burned her skin through three layers of fabric.

That was the first time she met Arthur. But it wasn’t the last.

Glenna started looking for him, this stranger with the long fingers and the kind touch who lived in Leoch. He was a lowlander, he’d said, learning the secrets of healing from Luthais Beaton. He always sat at the same table during supper, one of the few she served. Every time she looked in his direction, his brown stare was there, aiming straight at her heart.

Glenna met him in the gardens almost a week after that first time in the surgery. He was looking for healing herbs, she for savory ones.

They sat on a bench, talking until the sun flamed the sky red, just like her cheeks. Like the lines in the handkerchief peeking from his pocket. He moved closer to her when he showed her the thin lines on the leaves of the plant he carried. Her arm grazed his when she brought the _lus-marsalaidh_  closer for him to smell. She flinched at the contact, as if she’d touched the cauldron, hot from the fire. He gasped, as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

Glenna started dreaming of him. The brown locks, the eyes that burned through hers, the herbal smell.

A lowlander. Her father would never let her marry a lowlander.

And yet, she went to the gardens everyday, waiting to see him. And he came – day, after day, after day. For her.

He taught her all about willow bark and crowberry,  _slan lus_  and  _braonan fruich_.

He talked to her about his home, close to the sea. About his dream of healing people.

When he talked to her about a future, a family, his hand found hers and their fingers interlaced, a pattern made since the beginning of things, like the colors in his tartan, effortlessly woven to create something bigger. Glenna leaned her head into his shoulder, feeling him breathe the strong lavender scent that enveloped them, wishing time to stop.

Time didn’t stop. It only ever presses on.

Arthur left Leoch a month after Glenna’s mother got sick. Their plans of an escape scattered to the four horizons, birds looking for freedom and warmer lands.

Their lips were moist from tears when they met for the first and last time. The pain of parting turned everything coarse. His handkerchief felt rough against her skin. The same fabric she’d cherish like silk the days that would follow.

–

Aye, Glenna FitzGibbons knew love when she saw it. Because she’d seen it, calm and burning, looking into her eyes.

With a bittersweet smile and a slight shake of her head she turned her gaze back to the counter, dusting it with a bit more flour. The dough dropped onto the wooden surface with an audible  _plop_ , peppering her apron with the white dust that had surrounded her almost all her life. Her knuckles sank in the still-sticky dough, and she started kneading it, hands working on their own, repeating the same movements she made every day. With reverence, with love. With her mother’s voice, whispering instructions to her. With a ghost of a mouth, placing a fervent kiss on those same knuckles.


End file.
